simTarts

I'm seeing a lot of "I hate Valentine's Day" stuff flooded on the internet today, per usual. It's funny because even though I'm in a serious relationship, I am completely ambivalent about the day and also think it's a tad pointless and stupid (please don't be offended if you DO enjoy the holiday!). Back in high school, though (i.e. ages ago), I remember it being Hell on Earth. Various clubs and whatnot would "sell" stuff for valentines day, like candies, flowers, balloons, and singing telegrams, and they would all be delivered during classes. Which seems like an annoying disruption that shouldn't be allowed, if you ask me. Anyway, it always seemed like the same girls got these valentine deliveries. They were the sort of girls who ALWAYS had boyfriends, and I remember being mystified as to how they got that way, and moreover, why they WANTED to always have boyfriends. What the heck is the point of being sixteen and as cute as you'll ever be if you're already going to act like your married? The delivered gifts were always really ugly and cheap, too--ugly plain balloons, dyed carnations--definitely nothing I would actually have wanted. I don't think those girls cared about the quality of the gifts, though. They cared about everyone seeing them getting valentines, because then we would know that they were desirable, that somebody liked them.

When my boyfriend and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day together, I told him he didn't have to get me anything and that I didn't really care about the holiday, so if he wanted to keep it low-key, that was fine with me. He seemed suspicious, as if I must surely be playing some kind of trick or testing him. Keep in mind that one of his friends was forced to sleep on the couch for a week when he didn't "propose" on V-day to his girlfriend as she expected, so he was accustomed to girls getting all diva over the holiday. This is our third Valentines day together, and he knows by now that it's not something I make a fuss over. Other people sure do, though. I couldn't believe the flower specials I saw around town this weekend, and for being "special" they sure are expensive. Forty dollars for roses that will die. Actually, my cats would probably knock them over/eat them before they died. All because someone, somewhere decided that Feb 14th was a good day for making people buy stuff for their loved ones.

I found it one hundred times more meaningful when my boyfriend surprised me with an new iPod, for no reason except that I had dedicated myself to working on my novel all summer long, and he wanted to reward me for my hard work. He got me a gift not because some day on the calendar told him to, but because he wanted to. What could be better than that? Maybe an ugly carnation....

So, once upon a time, not too very long, I actually completed an asylum challenge, and vowed that the winner of said challenge would be the founder in my new pixel_trade legacy. Folks, (dramatic pause) this is that legacy. Perhaps I will actually follow through and complete this challenge, too!



( come on in from the cold )
Founder: Albina Knickers by dorkasaur_sims

Cameos by: charterzard, stakeit_uk, snapun, slyndsey, bondchick_nett, needlecream, and boolpropbea

| Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four |

( One last half-assed update )

Featuring sims by boolpropbea, lil_pixiedevil, needlecream, jens_sims, keoni_chan, upendoaushi, charterzard, and dorkasaur_sims.

With cameos from sims by stakeit_uk and legacyfreak

I warned you that pic-spam was coming, and now...it has come. Most of these pictures are from neighborhood view cam, as I've been spending most of my time re-deocorating Zaxis' Mayfair 'hood. In my mind this town is modeled after New Orleans, and perhaps a little of San Francisco, but I guess you can't really tell in neighborhood view because my sister look at it and said "Is that supposed to be Pittsburgh?" D: NOT what I was going for...but when I build the actual lots hopefully the New Orleans flavor will come through more strongly.

I'm going for a strong sense of realism in this hood, because I'm going to be using it for a story. I actually want to build a more bright, cartoony, maxis-ish neighborhood just to see the difference on my new computer, but that would involve figuring out how to get two separate games going, with two entirely different sets of CC. I know that some people play two differently styled games all the time, so what do you think is the best way to do it? Just swap out your "Sims 2" files by giving them different names? Or create a separate user account on the computer and re-install all the games? I'm trying to figure out what's most convenient, because I'm lazy.

Anyway, enough with the blabber, and on with the pic spam. The pics look much better on my big 1600x900 monitor than they do on this macbook, so hopefully they will look nicer to your eyes than they do to mine at the moment. :|

Minimal editing - mostly just cropping, re-sizing, and a sharpen and/or softglow here and there (I use GIMP, not Photoshop).



( And more... )

I have been busy lately. I have been so busy that I am sort of going out of my head. D: I'm teaching two courses this semester that I've never taught before, which equates to a LOT of prep work, and now they've all taken their midterms and I am in Grading Hell.

Grading Hell, by the way, is an actual place. It's filled with paper cuts, dirty dishes, and piles of laundry (because there is no time for laundry or dishes when one is stuck in grading hell!)

When I do time for Sims, it's just in hour-long snatches at a time, so I don't see the final update of Group Hug coming up anytime soon. There's just half a week left to play out, though! It'll get done eventually.

I have firmly decided to build a PC desktop for my Christmas Present. I am a mac-user at heart, but to get a mac that is souped up enough to play both Sims 2 and Sims 3, I will have to drop a huge amount of $$$, which I don't want to do. So, PC it is. And I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO USE WARDROBE WRANGLER AND SIMPE AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF NORMAL PEOPLE USE!!

Be aware, when the time comes I will probably be here asking questions about what graphics card to get and stuff. :)

I am half-way through editing a batch of pictures for the next Group Hug Group Home, but I'm all bedridden with a horrible cold/sinus infection and watching youtube videos of Silent Hill 4: The Room is just much more compelling right now.

I don't know what it says about me that I find Silent Hill compelling, especially when I am sick.

But I have papers to grade, too. And I bet it was one of my students' germy papers that got me sick in the first place. Hrmph.

So awhile ago I lamented to mikelisryker that I couldn't offer up sims for download because I am a Mac user. But then this weekend I realized, DUH, that I can package sims from bodyshop. So yes, I should theoretically be able to submit sims that I've made - I just don't have SimPE to extract born-in-game sims from my neighborhoods.

But this is my first time packaging and uploading sims, so I was wondering if someone would volunteer to test them out for me? You'd just need to download the files and make sure that the sims show up in game/bodyshop...


ETA: ISSUE RESOLVED!
Thank you mikelisryker and engram_au!

I've been pretty good about posting an Asylum Challenge post once a week, but it's just not gonna happen this week, alas. I got on a really anal downloading spree/pruning session, as you do, so I didn't get that much actual playing in.

Funny story, though: last night I had the game open and was looking at different male hairs in CAS, trying to figure out what I wanted to keep and scrap. My boyfriend was sitting beside me watching television and alternately making comments on sim's male hairstyles:

Him: What is that? Is that a chick?
Me: No, it's a guy.
Him: It looks like a girl. Why is his hair so BIG?
Me: That's nothing! *shows him more hairs*
Him: Who makes this stuff? Guys don't wear their hair like that!

LOL. And then later, when I was actually playing the Asylum lot.

Him: Who is that outside?
Me: Just a random sim walking by.
Him: Can you talk to him?
Me: Sure.
Him: Go out there! Go out there and beat him up!
Me: It isn't Grand Theft Auto!
Him: *after a moment's thought* So...could you make a sim and turn her into the town slut?

Town sluts and fights...this is how you get a man interested in the sims at my house, I guess!